A Grain of Sand in the Indifferent Ocean
by polski-doodle
Summary: Toris has a week to write a 5,000 word story. It should be easy. If only he didn't have to break up Ivan's fights, ruin Feliks' relationship, save Raivis from drowning, bail Eduard out of jail again, and figure out who he really is in the middle of a Moscow heatwave. [Human AU set in the 70s USSR. LietPol, EstFin, minor Prussia/Poland. A lot more adult themes than my other works]
1. утро - morning

утро – morning | saturday

* * *

"_The sun shone through the blinds, revealing all the truths he did not want to see."_

Toris' fingers hover above the typewriter keys for a moment before he withdraws his hands into his lap again. He stares at the sentence until the words no longer make sense and the letters blur into each other. A humid breeze from the open window brushes the back of his neck. The ceiling fan does nothing to cool the room down. It might as well have been for decoration. Toris wipes the sweat off his forehead with the collar of his shirt and puts his fingers to the keys. The deadline was yesterday. He'd managed to get it extended with enough cigarettes, alcohol, and begging. The editor shook his head and told Toris to bring in a finished manuscript no later than ten a.m. next Friday.

He started with 168 hours to finish a 5,000-word story.

It's taken him fifteen hours to write one sentence he liked.

His eyes drift away from the almost blank page. Before he knows what he's doing, he's watching clouds roll across the sky. Two black birds sit on the edge of the balcony railing, picking at each other. A car in the street dies with a cloud of grey smoke and a man steps out to yell at the engine. A woman walks by with a dog on a leash, a long-faced borzoi. Ivan always talks about getting a borzoi.

Toris turns in his chair to watch the man asleep on the couch. Ivan is entangled in a blue striped sheet, his hair hiding most of his face. He came home late last night and muttered about a fight before collapsing on the couch. His knuckles are covered in dried blood and his cheek bears a soft purple bruise. Despite this, he seems at peace and is even smiling a little. When he's asleep, Ivan looks like the person he used to be, the person Toris has only met in photographs.

The floor creaks as Toris gets up from his chair to take a closer look at who Ivan used to be. He stops himself short, grabbing his hand by the wrist.

"I need to focus," he says in a whisper. "I have to get this done."

Toris doesn't return to the chair, though. He stands there, taking in Ivan's rough features. Counting the scars decorating his skin. Watching his chest rise and fall.

Moments like these are when Toris finds himself filled with jealousy. He cannot capture this instant in a photo like Eduard can – Toris' photos always come out blurred or dotted with exposure. He can't put Ivan's crude softness into a painting the way Raivis does. All he can do is write. And there are no words to express how this feels. He could write an entire book about Ivan and it wouldn't say what it should say. There is no way to shove the thousands of thoughts and emotions into words. There isn't a word to contain Ivan Braginsky.

"I have a deadline," Toris announces to the sickeningly hot, silent room. He puts aside his self-pity and confusion and turns himself around. The chair's feet grate on the wood floor as he pulls it out and he flinches, glancing over his shoulder at Ivan. He's hidden his face with his arm.

Toris sits at the desk with his fingers over the keys, suffocating in the heat, for another twenty minutes before any words come to him. He types out the next sentence letter by letter. It feels wrong and clunky when he's finished, but he forces himself to move on. Editing while he's writing does nothing except give him anxiety and slow him down. He does it anyway.

It takes several more painful, terrible sentences for him to find a rhythm. It's slow and awkward. It's a rhythm nonetheless. Toris types the words as they come to him without waiting for them to organize themselves into something better than they can be. Sentences run on for lines and he's describing things in too much detail. He tells himself to stop worrying and keep pushing forward. No one will read this, anyway. No one cares about the story of a man who lost everything. Everyone Toris knows has lost everything.

"You're so serious when you write."

The key clicks stop.

"Good morning, Ivan," Toris says as he rips the paper from the typewriter. "I hope I didn't wake you up."

"You're fine," Ivan says through a yawn. "What were you writing? Can I read it?"

"It's nothing." Toris takes a frantic look through the three paragraphs he's wrote, hoping he didn't write anything embarrassing without realizing it. He catches pieces of things he doesn't recall writing. He sees wrong punctuation and misspellings. He reads a small paragraph he devoted to describing the way the air feels after it rains. "Here, read it if you want," he says, holding the paper over his shoulder. As it leaves his fingertips, he says, "It's not much good."

Ivan does not speak for a few minutes. Toris focuses his attention on a rip in the wallpaper. He's mortified. He is always mortified whenever Ivan reads his work. Everything he writes is a window into who Toris is. He's not sure if he wants Ivan to see inside.

"It's not as bad as you think," Ivan says at last. "It needs some work. What time is it?"

"Almost eight," Toris says.

"Why are you up so early writing?" Ivan crumples the page and throws it past Toris. It bounces off the wall and stops over a pile of pages with one or two sentences typed on them, a small monument to Toris' doubt. Every time he sits down to write, he ends up wasting paper with awful, cliché opening lines. It takes him ten to twenty pages to get the right one.

"I'm always up this early. I have a new deadline." Toris types out the same sentence he started the other page with. It's the only salvageable piece of it. "How are you feeling?"

"Not good. Timo, that Finnish bastard Eduard's friends with, can throw a good punch for someone the size of a kindergartener. Got me right where the other bruise was, too."

"Why did he hit you?"

"I don't remember. We were playing cards, I think. Probably lost," Ivan says. "Can you go get me some ice?"

Toris sighs. He doesn't mean to. It's a reflex now. "Can you get it yourself? I'm working."

"Please?"

Toris finds himself walking down the hallway toward the kitchen without realizing he's done it. When it dawns on him, he stops in the hallway and curses himself for being such a pushover. He goes to the fridge and takes a bag of half-frozen corn from the freezer. When he returns to the bedroom-turned-office, he tosses the bag onto Ivan's stomach. Ivan mumbles a thank-you, pressing the melting corn to the bruise on his face.

"Don't ask me for anything else. I have to get this done this week," Toris says.

"What are you writing about now?" Ivan asks.

"I don't know."

"Oh. How long do you have to finish it?"

"Until next Friday."

"Do you think you can do it?"

"Not with you pestering me," Toris says. "Please, Ivan, shut up. We need this."

"How bad?" Ivan says with what Toris can safely assume is a stupid grin.

"We've got to pay rent next week, Eduard wants more film developed, we're almost out of food, and you keep losing every bet you make. We need this more than I want to admit and_ I'm_ the only one who will do anything about it."

"You don't have to get so mad. Sorry I asked."

Ivan stops talking for a while, letting Toris work in quiet. Toris is the source of the most reliable income of their mismatched family, followed by Eduard, when he isn't getting arrested. Ivan comes in third place, assuming he finds an odd job to do between raving about dead writers and wasting money on things he never pursues, like the time he bought an accordion or when he decided he was going to make stained glass windows and tried to convert the living room into a workshop. Raivis just stays in the living room, painting whatever he feels like. Sometimes he sells a painting or two and moves up in rank.

It's incorrect to say that everything rests on Toris' shoulders. Sometimes the others help. Not often. Most of the time Toris is the one doing everything he can to extend payments and scrape together enough for groceries. Several times he's tried to bring it up to them and they laugh it off. It's enough to make Toris want to quit and force everyone to fend for themselves. Every time he tells himself he's going to stop, he can't bring himself to. He's too nice for his own good.

"Toris?" Ivan says.

"Is it important?" Toris says.

"Yes. I was supposed to wake Eduard up at six."

Toris stops writing, holding his head in his hands. Their definitions of important are different. "What for?"

"I don't remember. You don't think it's important –"

He doesn't have a chance to finish. The bedroom door slams open and Eduard runs down the hallway with an armful of folders and photographs. Toris watches a photo flutter to the floor. Something in the kitchen crashes and Eduard curses.

"Eduard?" Toris says. "Are you okay?"

He doesn't hear an answer. Other smaller crashes and clatters follow. Toris shoots Ivan a frigid glare. Ivan shrugs.

"Where did you put my fucking shoes?" Eduard hits the wall. Toris prays it didn't make another hole.

"They should be by the door," Toris says.

"They're not!" Eduard hits the wall again. "I'm wearing yours. Where are they?"

"In the living room, by the radio." Toris gets up and Ivan scrambles to his feet. Toris holds out his hand like he's telling a dog to stay. Ivan looks relieved. Of course. No one wants to deal with Eduard. Somehow, Toris always ends up calming Eduard down.

Toris follows the trail of photographs into the living room, where Eduard is rummaging through a cabinet. He's wearing Toris' shoes and didn't bother to tie them. Papers are being thrown onto the floor – Toris can only watch as a manuscript gets scattered across the paint splattered floor. Eduard slams the door to the cabinet and the frosted glass door shatters.

Eduard winces, says an apology through gritted teeth, and goes over to the corner of the living room claimed by Raivis. He steps over jars of paint and paintings of Leningrad left out to dry to get to a small box on a shelf. After dumping the contents of the box on the bookcase, he sifts through them, runs a hand through his hair, and turns to escape the maze of paint. As he takes a huge step, the tip of his shoe catches an open jar. Prussian blue soaks through the cloth they'd laid down to protect the floor and spills onto the floorboards. Eduard stares at the mess, sits down on the barstool in front of the easel, and buries his face in the folder of photographs.

Toris takes a deep breath. He'll have to write later. "What's wrong?"

"Where's that goddamn Russian?" Eduard says. "He was supposed to wake me up."

"Where do you need to go? I can take you."

"It's too late. The meeting was at eight. They wanted to use my photos in _Sovetskoe_," Eduard says. His voice cracks as he says this. Being published in _Sovetskoe _is every amateur photographer's dream. "Raivis took apart the alarm clock. I told him to put it together and he didn't because no one ever listens to anything I say here. And then that goddamn Russian didn't wake me up. I knew it. I knew he would do this."

"We have time, Eduard." The clock on the wall behind him says it's a few minutes before eight and the _Sovetskoe _office is five blocks away.

"It's over!" Eduard throws the folder across the room and photographs fly out in a million directions.

It's a tragic sort of lovely to see a hundred moments Eduard caught flutter in the sunlight. For a second Toris sees familiar faces and those of strangers. He sees parties and days in the park. A photograph lands near his foot – it's of a day last spring, when Raivis got Ivan and Toris to pose as Pierre and Natasha, respectively. Toris' hair is braided with flowers. Ivan is wearing Eduard's glasses. They're holding hands and trying not to laugh.

"I'm so sorry," Toris says.

Eduard stares at the wreckage of his work. His glasses are crooked and his shirt is misbuttoned. There is no light left in him. "This was going to be it," he says. "We could've had everything."

_Sovetskoe _does not pay good enough for everything. Toris crosses the room, picking up photos along the way. He peels a few out of the paint on the floor. "I can't make this up to you," he says. "I'm sorry."

"You didn't do this," Eduard says. "Ivan! Get in here!"

Ivan comes into the living room, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. "Eduard, I –"

"Don't say anything unless I ask you. Listen to me for once in your life. This was important to me. You knew that, didn't you?"

"If you'd let me explain –" Ivan tries to say.

Eduard grabs the nearest thing – a dog-eared copy of Solzhenitsyn's _Cancer Ward. _Toris steps out of the way. He throws the book with astonishing force into Ivan's face. Ivan doesn't attempt to catch it and it hits him with a slap that would have been comical, had Eduard's career not been tarnished. "Answer the question you worthless piece of shit. You knew this was important to me."

"Yes. I did."

"And I asked you to wake me up, because I know you are always up before six. I trusted you. What did you do, Ivan Braginsky? What did you do to me?"

"I forgot."

"Did you?" Eduard gets up from the barstool and goes up to Ivan. He doesn't come above Ivan's shoulders. "Or did you go get drunk with your friends?"

"I wasn't drunk. I didn't mean to sleep so long."

Eduard pushes Ivan away. "Leave. Leave right now."

"Is there anything I can do to –"

"Do us all a big favor and kill yourself," Eduard snaps.

"He doesn't mean that," Toris says as Ivan leaves. Ivan nods. He's done this many times before.

"Yes, I do." Eduard's anger fades into something more pitiful. "Why do you let him stay here, Toris?"

"He's in the same place as the rest of us."

"Don't compare him to us. We don't destroy everything. We don't waste all our money. We don't let each other miss a meeting with _Sovetskoe._" Eduard falls down on the couch covered in papers and photographs. He picks up a photo of a street and rips it into tiny pieces, letting the bits sift through his fingers. "I should've asked you. I didn't want to bother you. You're always so stressed and you didn't need my stupid problems. I'm so worthless."

Toris glances at the clock on the wall. He has 153 hours to finish his story. Calming Eduard down will take at least two hours and a few rubles. "It's not a good replacement, but do you want to go get ice cream?" he asks.

Eduard nods. "Do we have the money for it?"

"No. I'll figure it out. Do you care if Raivis comes?"

"No. Just not Ivan."

"Okay. I'll be ready in a moment," Toris says, leaving Eduard in the disaster of the living room. He goes to the bedroom Eduard and Raivis share, where Raivis is asleep on a bare mattress up against the wall. Toris kneels next to him and gives the boy a gentle shake.

"Yeah?" Raivis rolls over, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"Get dressed, we're going to get ice cream."

Raivis jolts upright in bed. "For breakfast?" he asks as he grabs the closest shirt from a pile on the floor and pulls it over his head. "What's wrong with you?"

"Eduard needs it," Toris says. "Don't ask questions."

"Can I get whatever I want?" Raivis says, following after Toris as he pulls on a pair of jeans dotted with paint. He pauses at the entryway to the living room and opens his mouth to ask about the chaos before reminding himself that ice cream is on the line.

"Whatever you'd like." Toris takes his wallet from the kitchen table and says a short prayer before opening it. A few rubles greet him. "Within reason. Hey, Eduard, let's go."

Eduard comes into the hallway looking less disheveled. "You don't have shoes," he says.

"It's okay. The store's down the block. No one's up to see me, anyway." Toris grabs a ring of keys from a hook by the door. "Bye, Ivan."

Ivan doesn't say anything in response. He's smarter than Toris thought.

They walk to the store without saying much. Toris can tell Raivis is itching to ask a thousand questions. He manages to ask only three: what ice cream should he get, why is Eduard wearing Toris' shoes, and what did Ivan do? Toris throws a well-placed elbow into Raivis' ribs when he asks the last one and Raivis doubles over. Eduard pretends he didn't hear the question and asks Toris about the new story he's writing.

The queue for the store isn't as long as usual. A few people give Toris a look when they see he's only wearing socks. Toris smiles. He can't do anything else.

They stand in front of the freezer for ten minutes, acting like they're deliberating on which ice cream to get while getting a reprieve from the summer heat. Raivis picks an Eskimo, Eduard takes a Lakomka, and Toris chooses a small cup of strawberry ice cream (the cheapest). He pays for it and as soon as they're outside, Raivis takes off running to the flat, shouting about the ice cream melting. Toris doesn't bother chasing him.

"You're such a good person," Eduard says as they climb the steps to their cramped apartment. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

"You're good, too, Eduard."

"Not like you. Jesus, you're a saint. If you weren't here, I would've killed Ivan by now. You're like the mom I never had," Eduard says.

Raivis is waiting by the locked door, jumping up and down like a puppy excited to go for a walk. Toris unlocks the door and he runs inside, unwrapping the Eskimo as he kicks off his shoes. By the time Eduard and Toris get to the table, half of Raivis' ice cream is gone and his hand is covered in melted chocolate. Toris and Eduard take their usual seats, Eduard facing the wall and Toris facing the hallway. In the living room, he sees Ivan picking up photos and shuffling glass into a pile. Not cleaning the mess. Organizing it.

"I haven't eaten in two days," Raivis says through a mouthful of ice cream.

"One, don't talk with your mouth full and two, why don't you tell me these things?" Toris says. "I can make you something if you're hungry."

"I don't want to bother you."

"So you'd starve before you'd tell Toris you haven't eaten?" Eduard says as he takes a bowl from the sink and smashes up his ice cream bar in it with a spoon. He tosses a spoon on the table for Toris.

"Sure."

"You're a strange kid." Eduard takes a bite of his ice cream and Toris sees him melt. Not enough to forgive Ivan. Maybe enough to let it go. "Thank you, Toris. You didn't have to do this after I wrecked the place."

"It's okay," Toris says, peeling the lid from his cup of ice cream. The ice cream in the cups always tastes more chemical than he remembers. "We'll clean it up later." _We'll _means Toris will pick up and Eduard will sit on the couch and complain.

"Hey, I need to get something from the kitchen," Ivan says from the hallway.

"Then starve," Eduard says.

"Fine. Toris, can you bring me the pliers?" Ivan asks. He peeks into the kitchen – thank God Eduard is facing the other way. "I've got a huge piece of glass in my foot."

"I hope it gets infected and you have to amputate it," Eduard says as Toris grabs the pliers from their drawer of miscellany. Toris tells him to stop and hands the pliers over to Ivan.

"I don't actually need these," Ivan whispers. "Will you tell Eduard I'm sorry?"

"Eduard, Ivan says he's sorry," Toris says over his shoulder. Sometimes Eduard and Ivan will go weeks talking through Toris. Sometimes it feels like secondary school here, only with a lot more _fuck-yous _and fistfights.

"Interesting. I hate you and I refuse to apologize for anything I say."

"I can make it up to you. I'll get you another interview,_" _Ivan says.

"You can't."

"I can. I know one of their editors. He's a little Romanian kid. Real nice. He could get you in," Ivan says.

"Stop lying. It's making it worse."

"I'm not. His name's Vladimir…Something complicated. I'll call him right now." Ivan comes into the kitchen, which is the same, if not worse than stepping onto a battlefield. Eduard clenches his spoon so tight he's shaking as Ivan goes to the phone and dials a number. They wait in stiff silence as the phone rings. On the fourth ring, just when Ivan's starting to panic, someone picks up.

"Hello, Vladimir?...Not bad. How are you?" Ivan gives Eduard a grin. Eduard's face turns red. "So I have a question for you. I have a friend who's a photographer. He was supposed to have an interview today, but…Oh? You…Okay. I understand. Call me when…Thank you. I'll see you soon." He hangs the phone up and disappears into the living room.

The temperature in the room drops ten degrees. "What did he have to say, Ivan?" Eduard says.

"He said not this month," Ivan says. "Maybe in August."

"Maybe is good," Toris says before Eduard can speak. "It's better than nothing, Eduard."

Eduard glares at Toris and crosses his arms over his chest. "Maybe means no. Maybe doesn't mean maybe. I guarantee Vladimir doesn't even work at _Sovetskoe."_

"It was the _Sovetskoe _thing?" Raivis says. Eduard turns on him and Toris kicks the boy under the table. This doesn't stop Raivis. Not much does. "That was today, wasn't it? What happened?" he asks, oblivious to Toris silently pleading for him to stop.

"You didn't put the alarm clock together." Eduard gets up from the table and dumps his empty bowl and spoon in the sink. "If you would pay attention for once in your life, I could've been published."

Raivis takes a second to think this over. "Okay. Sorry."

"You're terrible at apologies," Eduard says. "If you weren't so damn fragile…"

"Why don't we stop while we're ahead?" Toris says, in vain hopes someone is listening.

This does not stop Raivis. Nothing does. "Why are you pissed at Ivan, then?"

"Let's not talk about it," Toris says, stepping in between Eduard and Raivis. "Why don't you go out today while we clean up?" he says to Eduard. "You should check in on Timo. I can't imagine he looks better than Ivan."

"Timo?" Eduard's face softens a bit. "What happened to…" Realization hits him and Toris at the same time.

Eduard goes straight to the living room despite Toris' attempts to restrain him. Ivan drops the stack of papers he'd been shuffling into a pile and holds up his hands as he backs into the wall.

"What did you do to Timo?" Eduard grabs a fistful of Ivan's shirt, pulling him down to eye level. Ivan has the strength to pull himself free. He doesn't.

"I can't remember," Ivan says. "He's fine. We both walked away from it."

"Why do you want to ruin everything for me?"

"I don't intend to hurt you."

"You never target anyone else in this house! It's always _me." _Eduard hits his chest for emphasis. "It's always me. Everything and everyone I care about gets hurt by you. Nothing can ever go right for me because of you."

"That's not true," Ivan says, easing Eduard off of him. Eduard's arms hang limp at his sides. He looks at the floor with half-lidded, tear-filled eyes. Ivan apologizes again. Eduard holds a hand over his face, pushing his glasses up onto his forehead.

"You're killing me," he says. "You're ruining my life."

"Don't be dramatic." Ivan steps around Eduard and gathers up the pile of papers. He sets them in a neat pile on top of the coffee table and starts collecting the photographs. Eduard does not move. Toris wants to pull him away from Ivan – he's separated from them by a border of broken glass and he doesn't have shoes on. He's forced to weigh his options: risk getting glass shards in his feet and having to go to the hospital or hope to God that Eduard and Ivan are able to keep themselves at bay.

Neither option ends well.

"Eduard, come help me with dishes," Toris says. It's a weak attempt at pulling Eduard away. He can't think of much else.

"No." Eduard grabs the ashtray from the coffee table and traces the smooth edge with his finger.

Ivan's back is turned to Eduard.

Everything unfolds like a scene in a movie: slow and unreal.

Eduard misses.

The ashtray shatters on the wall no more than a centimeter above Ivan's head. Had he been standing up straight, it would have killed him. There's broken glass in his hair and dripping from his shoulders.

"You think you can solve everything by throwing things at me like a child?" Ivan says. He is too calm for this. He's smiling. For some insane reason, he's smiling.

Eduard grabs an empty wine bottle from the table and holds it above his head. "You hurt me again and again. It's like you want me to be miserable. Like you're trying to pull me to your level of self-hatred so you won't be so alone. I'm sorry I can't be as sad as you! I'm sorry that I have a passion and a purpose in my life and you've got nothing. I'm sorry that you can't get over Siberia. This isn't Perm-36 anymore," he says. His hands are shaking. His voice is shaking. "You need to grow up already."

"You're the one who is about to cry." Ivan approaches Eduard with small, unwavering steps. Eduard lowers the wine bottle to his chest, holding it out like a gun.

"Raivis, go get a knife," Toris says. Raivis sprints to the kitchen and returns with a small paring knife. He holds it like it's a sacred weapon, taking a few test stabs in the air.

"Are you going to stop them?" Raivis says with a slashing motion. Eduard and Ivan are talking over each other, their words blending into one angry white noise. All Toris can think about is that he could be using this time to finish his story.

"Maybe. I'd like to think they'll work this out," Toris says. "Doesn't seem likely."

"You think everything's about you," Ivan says. He grabs the wine bottle and rips it away from Eduard, then sets it down on the floor. "Everyone should do everything for you. Everyone should stop what they're doing to take care of you because you're the center of the world. You have never suffered one day in your life compared to the rest of us. Everything has always been taken care of for you. It's a good thing you didn't have parents. You would be unbearable."

"You act like such a martyr because you got sent to one damn gulag."

"I spent five years –"

"Who cares? It's over, Ivan. They should have shot you and threw you in a ditch somewhere," Eduard says.

"I wish they did. Then I wouldn't have to listen to your incessant bitching about every little thing that happens here."

It's a lovely punch. Toris will give Eduard credit where credit is due.

Eduard's fist connects with Ivan's crooked nose and there's an audible crack. For an instant, Ivan is too stunned to move. Blood rolls down over his lips and onto his white shirt.

"You fucking brat." Ivan wipes the blood off on his wrist, leaving a long smear of red on his skin.

Ivan does not fight with any grace. His hits are unpolished and effective. He isn't one for pleasantries, either. Instead of going for somewhere less painful, he throws his fist into Eduard's chin. Eduard crumples and does not make any effort to get up.

"Oh," Ivan says. As if this is a surprise.

Toris jumps over the broken glass and tries to force himself between Ivan and Eduard before Ivan can do any more damage. Ivan takes Toris by the arm and tosses him into the wall. Toris doesn't have time to catch himself and his head slams against the wall. Raivis comes to Toris' side, holding the knife out toward Ivan.

"He's dead!" Raivis says, pointing to Eduard with the knife.

"No. He's fine."

"He's unconscious," Toris says. "What's wrong with you? You might've seriously hurt him."

Ivan looks at Eduard with the same disdain he regards police officers with. "Someone had to put him in his place. And we've got ourselves a few minutes of peace."

"Get out of here," Toris says, pulling himself to his feet. "Get out of here before I kill you."

Raivis makes a small jab with the knife. Ivan rolls his eyes.

"God. I do one nice thing for you and you threaten to kill me with a kitchen knife." Ivan steps away from Eduard. "Here. Look at him if you're so worried. He's fine."

Toris goes to Eduard's side, kneeling beside him. His eyes are open. He isn't awake. The dull blue irises move at random, never stopping to focus. There's blood leaking from the corners of his mouth.

"Eduard?" Toris says, cradling his head with a hand. "Hey, Eduard, answer me."

"Give him a minute," Ivan says.

"Help me get him up," Toris says to Raivis. Raivis drops the knife on the bookcase and pulls Eduard upright. Toris manages to get his arm under Eduard's and Raivis takes the other side. Eduard's head rests on Toris' shoulder and Toris feels blood seeping through his shirt and rolling down his arm. Ivan stands at a distance with his arms crossed.

"You're just empowering him," he mutters.

"If you haven't noticed, he's bleeding from his mouth and out of it. I'll empower him all I want if it means I don't have to take him to the hospital," Toris says. "You pray to God that you didn't break anything. We don't have the money for that."

They carry Eduard to the bedroom and set him down on his bed; it's the only bed they have that isn't a mattress on the floor or a pile of blankets and pillows in a corner. Raivis brings Toris a wet washrag and a box of gauze. Eduard starts to come to while Toris is washing the blood from his face and neck. He sits upright despite Toris' insistence for him to lay down.

"I never thanked you for the ice cream," Eduard says. His voice is warped and blood pours out of his mouth. Toris' sheets are stained red. He hates washing sheets. There's no good place to hang them.

"Don't talk. You bit your tongue, didn't you?" Toris says. He opens the box of gauze and stuffs a few squares into Eduard's mouth. "There. Don't take them out, don't talk, don't do anything except stay here."

"I'm sorry, Toris," Eduard says anyway.

"I know. Are you okay?"

"My head hurts. Bad."

"I'm sorry," Toris says.

"It's my fault," Eduard says. His words are choked out by gauze and blood. "I should've stopped."

"It's okay. No one seems to be hurt that bad."

"You need to be working."

"I'll stay with you until you stop bleeding."

"Raivis can stay," Eduard says. "Go work."

"I will?" Raivis asks as Toris gets up.

"I guess you are. Make sure Eduard isn't talking and if he hasn't stopped bleeding in an hour, come get me," Toris says. "Eduard, please try to keep your blood in your mouth."

"Wait, why do I have to – "

Toris shuts the door before Raivis can finish. He returns to his desk and puts fresh paper in the typewriter. His fingers leave red prints on the edges. He's too exhausted to care about neatness.

The door to the room creaks open. Ivan steps inside, looming over Toris. "Is he okay?" he says without making eye contact. He doesn't care. He only wants Toris to give him attention. Two years ago, Toris would've fallen for it. Now that he's started to unravel Ivan's personality and made the same mistakes over and over, he knows better.

"I think it would be good for you to leave today," Toris says.

"Toris, please."

"I'm not suggesting it. I'm telling you to leave."

"What did I do to you?" Ivan says, pretending to be defeated.

"I'll discuss it with you when I don't want to rip your heart out."

Ivan leaves without much arguing or pleas. He only gives Toris a few sad looks and asks when he should come home. Toris wishes he was strong enough to say never_; _he says seven instead. Ivan tells him he's taking money for lunch and disappears. Toris watches the hallway until he hears the front door shut.

Before he starts writing, he checks the clock on the wall. It's 9:10.

Toris has 152 hours.

* * *

**a/n: here' a new little thing I'm starting.**

**This will be a short seven part series. It'll be updated whenever I feel like it. This is just an in-between project I started while working on my other story, _Let the Dead be Dead. _I've always wanted to write about a writer. Who better to project my feelings onto than Toris?**

**This based on the movie _Dovlatov _on Netflix, which is about a Russian writer trying to make it through a week. This story follows the same concept. _A Grain of Sand in the Indifferent Ocean_ title comes from a quote of his. I haven't read any of his work, but I really liked the movie. Russian movies aren't like ours. They capture moments better than anything I've seen before. I hope I can do the same with this. **

**Anyway, I hope you enjoy this. I've put a lot of love into it. **


	2. астроном – astronomer

астроном – astronomer | sunday

* * *

"_The stars lost their glow as he grew older."_

"What are you writing?"

The napkin Toris is writing on is plucked from his fingers. He almost falls out of his chair as he twists around to rescue it from Feliks' grasp. Feliks catches him with one hand and with the other holds the napkin up to the light, squinting as he tries to decipher Toris' messy handwriting. He gives up in a few seconds and hands the napkin to a stranger. Toris' heart jumps into his throat. The stranger, a young woman with wavy dark hair laced with flowers, makes a weak attempt to read it and returns it to Feliks with an insincere "sorry".

"Here," Feliks says, stuffing it into Toris' hand. "You read it for me."

"It's embarrassing." Toris folds the napkin as many times as he can, then sticks it in his shirt pocket.

"Will you at least tell me what it's about?" Feliks leans over Toris, resting his chin on his shoulder. In his hand is a wine glass full of either vodka or water. Feliks does not own normal cups. He drinks everything out of wine glasses, which Toris finds both tacky and endearing. "I can't read your handwriting for shit."

"You have to promise you won't laugh," Toris says.

Feliks laughs. He's twisting Toris' hair around his fingers. "You writers are so sensitive. You know I wouldn't laugh, Tolys."

No one calls Toris by his old name anymore. When he moved to Moscow two years ago, he had a thick Lithuanian accent that few Russians could understand. Somehow, his name was interpreted as Toris. He was too afraid to correct people and it sounded more Russian, anyway. He went along with it and started introducing himself as Toris and found his life became much easier. The name Tolys outed him as a Lithuanian, which could either estrange him or force him into answering a thousand questions about his supposed backwards country or his medieval upbringing. As long as Toris spoke little and didn't have to tell anyone his last name, he could blend into the background. He could be another struggling Muscovite artist.

Feliks is the one person who knew Toris when he was Tolys. He can't bring himself to say the wrong name, despite Toris' insistence that it's okay, it doesn't bother him. Toris abandoned Tolys, leaving him in the past.

"Hello? Are you going to tell me about it?" Feliks says. "I'm actually interested in what you're doing for once. This is the opportunity of a lifetime."

Toris' chest constricts at the thought of explaining his creative soul in a room full of strangers. "Let's go talk outside," he says. "There's too many people here."

"I don't care if they hear."

"I do."

"Fine. Crybaby."

Feliks pushes Toris up and takes him by the wrist, leading him through the maze of artists and writers. Every Sunday Feliks opens his home to anyone who wants to be there. It's turned into a strange sort of support group for the artists in his neighborhood. Most nights are filled with quiet conversations about applications being rejected for the twentieth time and where the best place to buy colored film is. On the rare occasion someone is lucky enough to find a way into a union, they have a funeral for their artistic expression, complete with kolyva. It's campy and childish and Toris loves being a part of it.

For the most part, Toris stays in a corner and writes. He picks up pieces of other people's conversations and writes them in the margins of his notebook, orchestrates fight scenes in his head, and plots out novels he'll never write. Eduard usually comes with him and spends the night talking with Timo in Finnish. When Toris is guilted into bringing Raivis, the boy vanishes. If Toris is lucky, he'll see Raivis once or twice, surrounded by other painters.

Feliks always finds Toris and pesters him about what he's writing, which is more of a front to talk about himself than actual interest in Toris. Toris doesn't mind. Feliks has always carried their conversations. They grew up together in a town on the border between Poland and the Lithuanian SSR. They know everything about each other and have seen each other at their best and worst, so letting Feliks do most of the talking doesn't weigh on Toris.

As Feliks weaves his way toward the balcony, Toris sees Eduard sitting on the kitchen counter, talking to Timo. They both wear bruises from Ivan's fist. Eduard says something with a smile.

No one is out on the balcony, though the smell of cigarette smoke lingers. Feliks slides the glass door shut and pulls up a plastic chair for Toris.

"Well?" Feliks says, offering Toris the wine glass. Toris takes a sip of it – it's vodka.

"Well what?" Toris says. "It isn't like you to be drinking straight vodka."

"I'm out of anything better besides water, and last I checked the faucet water color was somewhere between red and brown. Don't change the subject on me. Tell me about what you're writing. You don't talk much about it anymore."

"It isn't good. I should quit and go back to being a copy writer."

"Copy writer? Tolys, I'm getting worried about you," Feliks says. "You've been acting weird this whole summer. And now you want to work for a newspaper again? You hated Pravda. What's happening to you?"

"I'm just not as confident as I used to be," Toris says, which is small part of the truth. The rest of it is so complicated he can't begin to explain.

"Aren't we all?"

"That's not what I – " Toris is interrupted by David Bowie. Not the man himself, but a bootlegged recording of "Heroes", and a bad one at that. The quality does not stop whoever is put it on from playing it at the loudest the stereo will go.

"Hold on," Feliks says as leans back in his chair to look inside. He slides open the door and motions for someone to come to him. A girl appears before him and he tells her to turn it down, he's trying to have a conversation and he doesn't want the police to be called. The girl nods and leaves.

Feliks watches inside until the radio is turned down. The light from the kitchen washes him in an orange glow that Toris has only seen on summer nights in Moscow. The persistent, humid breeze makes his blond hair float like golden thread. When he returns his attention to Toris, half of his face is covered in shadows and the other side is illuminated, light catching in his eyelashes and highlighting his cupid's bow.

He's _beautiful._

This is the heaviest burden Toris bears. Since he moved to Moscow and reunited with Feliks, he's fallen in love. It wasn't a quick realization. It was walking down a flight of stairs, lingering on each step, and then somewhere along the way he tripped and now he's falling headfirst. And although he sees that he's headed toward a landing and he needs to stop himself, he's still in denial that it's even happening. As if wanting to kiss and hold someone forever is a normal part of a friendship.

The issue with his affection isn't Feliks. Feliks came out years ago to Toris on a starry, too hot night not unlike this one. He'd be the most supportive of Toris. It's not fear of being cast out from his circle of friends. It isn't even the thought of losing every job opportunity (he doesn't have many, anyways) or worse, being exiled from Moscow.

The problem is sitting in the kitchen, watching Feliks and Toris through the sliding doors with a beer in his hands. There's a cigarette caught in his teeth. His shirt is partially unbuttoned, as if he's auditioning for a cliché, Casanova role in a student film. Toris does not want to admit how well he pulls off this look.

The problem locks eyes with Toris. Toris hides his embarassment by tucking his hair behind his ear and turning toward the inner courtyard.

The problem has a name: Gilbert Beilschmidt.

"It's okay if you don't want to talk about it," Feliks says.

"I do. It's about a businessman," Toris says so fast he doesn't notice he's spoken until he sees that Feliks is looking at him, his eyes asking for more. "He's sick. I don't know how. Cancer. Maybe. Probably. But he sees that he doesn't have much time left and he doesn't want to work until he dies, so he leaves his job to go live in the country and watch the stars."

Feliks says nothing for a moment – something so rare Toris can't help being anxious about what he will say. When Feliks decides to speak, it's short and simple. "How does it end?" he asks before taking a sip of the vodka.

"He runs out of money and is forced to return to his job. He dies during a meteor shower."

Feliks does not reply for a long, long time. Toris' heart stutters. He sinks in his chair inch by inch, looking up at the smattering of stars above them. He wishes he didn't speak. He wishes he could take his words back and rip them up into a thousand pieces.

"That's so…you."

"Is that good or bad?"

"It's only good because I like you," Feliks says. "You're a great writer. I'm not saying that because we're friends or anything. You have, like, a way of putting so much emotion into what you write. You have a better grasp on life than most of the people here tonight. I guess what I want to say is that you could cheer up. Write something nice for once. Get out of this gloomy phase you're in."

"How am I supposed to when I live here? No one moves to Moscow to be happy."

"You have to look past this" – Feliks gestures to the prefab apartments surrounding them, which ooze sadness and poverty – "and see the good here. Find happy moments instead of focusing on the sad ones. Why don't you tell me a good thing that happened to you yesterday?"

Feliks could not have picked a worse day.

"Yesterday wasn't one of my best days. Eduard and Ivan got in another fight and I spent all evening cleaning blood out of the rug in our living room and picking up glass."

"Oh, Jesus," Feliks says. "I thought he looked a little rough. What happened?"

"The usual. This time Eduard bit his tongue bad enough that he should probably get stitches. Can you stitch up a tongue?"

"How should I know? He seems to be talking fine. And hey, at least you've got a clean living room now. There's a positive. Now you try."

Toris rolls his eyes – only Feliks could make a fight between Eduard and Ivan into a good thing. "You're the one person who understands me, but God, could you let me be sad for once?"

"You've been sad your whole life," Feliks says as he props his feet up on the balcony railing and tilts his chair back so far he almost falls over. "I say this with so much love in my heart. You can be the most…exhausting person. Sometimes you make me feel miserable."

Toris feels like Feliks sliced open his chest and poured salt in the wound. He makes Feliks miserable? Or is Feliks exaggerating? If Toris hurts him, why doesn't he leave? Is he going to leave? What would Toris do without Feliks? The thought of a Feliks-less world is enough to send Toris into a panicked spiral of what-ifs.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to," Toris says.

"It's okay, you don't need to apologize. I wish I could, like, take the sadness from you so you could enjoy yourself for once."

"That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."

"It's true. I'd do anything for you to be happy."

Toris is at a loss for words. He finds himself speechless around Feliks a lot more than he used to.

"You're blushing," Feliks says with a smirk.

Toris' hand goes to his cheek. "I don't want to be," he says.

"Would it hurt you to show an emotion other than miserable?" Feliks sits upright in his chair to grab Toris' wrist and take his hand away from his face. "It's cute, Tolys. You haven't changed."

If Toris could've melted, he would have. Instead, he pulls himself free from Feliks and nods toward Gilbert. "Someone's watching."

"I don't care about Gilbert," Feliks says. He sounds irritated – is it because of Toris or Gilbert? "I'm sick of him controlling everything I do."

"Then break up with him."

Feliks shrugs, as if Gilbert is more of an inconvenience than a huge, abusive problem. "I can't. He's paying most of the bills. I'd like to, though. I'm sure he's cheating on me with that girl, anyway. The one with flowers in her hair. She's from Hungary or some shit like that. She's always here. He says they work together and they're both working on some big photo assignment, which they happen to work on every time I'm gone. He's changed the sheets twice in the past week. I've never seen him clean this place once."

Toris doesn't have clue what to tell Feliks. He hasn't been in a relationship in a while, not since a series of one-night stands with Ivan's sister before he knew she was Ivan's sister. The familial resemblance killed anything Toris could have felt for Natalya.

"I'm sorry," he says, unable to find a better apology.

"Don't be. It's my problem and I'm too poor to fix it." Feliks holds his wine glass out in a mock toast. "Here's to being broke." He takes a shot of vodka and gives it to Toris, who takes a small drink and returns it to Feliks.

The door to the inside slides open and Raivis sticks his head out onto the balcony. "Hi, Feliks," he says.

"It's good to see you, Raivis. Here's to being broke." Feliks gives him the wine glass and Raivis tries and would have succeeded to take a drink, had Toris not pulled the glass from him. Vodka spills onto the concrete floor and down the front of Raivis' shirt.

"He's fourteen," Toris says to Feliks.

"He's got to learn some time."

"Feliks is right." Raivis reaches for the wine glass and Toris holds it out of his grasp, over the balcony railing.

"You're too young to be drinking. Why did you come out here?"

"Why did I..?" Raivis stops to think. Toris glances at Feliks and Feliks shakes his head. Raivis would forget to breathe if it wasn't instinct. "Oh! Eduard is bleeding again and he wanted me to get you."

"Does he have gauze with him?"

"Maybe?"

"I have gauze in the bathroom cabinet," Feliks says. "Is it bad?"

"How should I know? I'm not a doctor. He scared the hell out of Timo, though. I think they're in the bathroom." Raivis disappears into the apartment before Toris can ask any more questions. Toris looks to Feliks for help. Feliks is tracing the rim of his wine glass, looking like a lost child.

"I should go make sure Eduard's okay," Toris says as he gets up. "If he isn't losing too much blood, I'll come back."

Feliks laughs. It's half-hearted. "I need to check on Gilbert, anyway. It was good talking to you. I hate that we see each other once a week. You should come by more." He comes inside with Toris and stands on his tiptoes to reach Toris' ear. "It'd make Gilbert mad," he whispers, tucking a strand of Toris' hair behind his ear.

Toris can feel Gilbert glaring at him. He's too emotionally shocked to be afraid. "Maybe I will. I'd do just about anything to make him mad," he says in a voice that isn't his. Where did this braver Toris come from?

"Good. I hope Eduard isn't bleeding too much."

And with this, Feliks goes straight to Gilbert. Toris can't do anything except watch as Gilbert pulls Feliks in, holding him not with tenderness but force. He sees Gilbert grab Feliks' jaw and tilt his head up so their eyes meet. They speak in short, furious sentences. Gilbert looks up at Toris. Feliks tries to push away and Gilbert presses him to his chest.

Toris turns and leaves the room with a knot of anger in his stomach. He walks through conversations in the living room and avoids familiar faces in the hallway until he reaches the small bathroom. Raivis is leaning against the doorframe, talking to someone inside. Toris steps into the bathroom and finds Eduard sitting on the vanity with a washrag in his mouth, his button up shirt off, and round drops of blood on his white t-shirt. Timo is trying to scrub the blood out from Eduard's shirt in the sink. Timo looks worse up close than at a distance and he moves with an uncharacteristic stiffness, as though every movement pains him. Toris doesn't doubt it.

"Hi, Timo," Toris says. "I'm sorry about Ivan and Eduard."

Timo nods in acknowledgement. "_Kiitos. Ei se ole sinun vikasi."_

"He says it's not your fault," Eduard says through a mouthful of washrag.

"I mean what he says." Timo is always reluctant to speak Russian. He understands it well, however, he speaks it at about the same level as a toddler. He prefers to speak through Eduard, who is fluent in Finnish by the grace of God, years of studying, and having Estonian as his native tongue. "What should I be doing to fix him?"

"He's good," Raivis says. "He's just being a baby."

"Am not," Eduard says.

"_Hys_." Timo hits Eduard's arm with his elbow and both of them cringe. "He does not stop talking when he's got blood. He is so… _Kuinka sanot tyhmä_?" he asks Eduard.

"Stupid. And I'm not."

"He is so fucking stupid," Timo says. Cursing is the one thing he has a strong understanding of.

"Do we need to go home?" Toris says.

Eduard shakes his head. "No. I'm good."

"You have blood all over. Go home, Snufkin_."_ Timo wrings out the shirt and gives it to Eduard. Eduard takes the washcloth out of his mouth – it has more red splotches on it than its original blue. Timo flinches at the sight and holds the rag under the faucet. The water, already discolored, turns a deeper shade of red.

"Walk me home, then," Eduard says.

"_Sinä olet niin ikävä."_

"_Sinun ei tarvitse olla töykeä_." Eduard slides down from the vanity and pushes past Toris and Raivis. Toris watches Timo chase after Eduard.

Toris is an expert at hiding his emotions from everyone, including himself. Most of the time he doesn't even recognize what he's feeling. So why does it hurt him so much to see Timo and Eduard together? Why can't he be glad that Eduard is happy? Why does he have to be jealous?

As he walks through the living room, Toris sees Feliks sitting on Gilbert's lap. Feliks' hand is interlocked with Gilbert's. Gilbert kisses his neck and whispers into Feliks' ear. There's a collection of old bruises on Feliks' arms that Toris didn't notice before.

_You're such an idiot. _

Feliks glances up at him.

"Bye, Feliks," Toris says with a small wave.

"See you soon." Feliks keeps his free hand on his lap. He bends his fingers into the shape of a phone and mouths _call me_. Gilbert asks him what he said. Feliks says it's Lithuanian and Gilbert mutters something into Feliks' ear that Toris can assume isn't complimentary.

After everyone collects their shoes by the front door, the four of them set out into the night. The street is bare and the only noises come from their footsteps. Thousands of stars speckle the sky, the open arms of Virgo leading them home. Eduard and Timo talk in sleepy Finnish and twice Timo glances at Toris in such a way Toris knows they're talking about him. Raivis asks what Feliks and Toris were talking about on the balcony. Toris says he doesn't know. It's not quite a lie.

When they arrive at Timo's apartment, Timo pulls Eduard up the front steps and motions for Toris to follow him.

"Berwald has new telescope," he says as he throws open the door.

"We should be going…" Toris falters when he sees Timo and Eduard are already halfway up the steps.

They climb the steps past the second floor, where Timo shares a room with another Finn, and continue up to the roof. The door is propped open and a triangle of light spills onto the roof, revealing a tall man hunched over a telescope resting on the edge of the building. He stands up straight at the sound of them, turning to face them like a military general.

"Brought guests," Berwald says, glancing from Timo to Eduard to Toris to Raivis in slow succession. "And Raivis."

"Hi." Raivis holds up a hand in a peace offering. Berwald turns his back on the boy and leads Eduard and Timo up to the telescope. All three of them speak Finnish and Raivis and Toris are left standing in the doorway, Russian and clueless.

"I guess he's still mad." Toris gently elbows Raivis and the boy slaps his arm away.

"It's not my fault," Raivis says. "He shouldn't put his telescope on the roof of a building with a five-story drop. It's like he's asking for it to break." His face screws up at the memory of the telescope crashing to the sidewalk. "You can go if you want to. I'm staying here."

Toris goes over to the telescope and the three of them stop speaking, glancing at Toris as though he's a child walking in on an adult conversation. Berwald asks Eduard a question and begins adjusting the telescope. When he's satisfied, he steps away and Timo and Eduard approach the telescope like it's a priceless artifact. Their voices turn to whispers.

"It's good to see you," Berwald says to Toris, watching Timo and Eduard point the telescope to another star. "Been worried about you."

"You have?" Toris and Berwald aren't friends. They're more of distant acquaintances, tied together by Eduard and Timo. He's been over to Berwald's apartment a few times with Timo and Eduard. They've talked about their jobs and life every now and then. Toris doesn't know a lot about Berwald other than he grew up in Sweden, was kicked in the head by a horse when he was eight, and works in the observatory at the University of Moscow. He doubts Berwald knows much more about him.

"Timo said you're not doing well. With writing. Wondered if you'd lost your job." He glances toward Toris and Toris realizes this is a question.

"No, not yet. I'm working for a new journal. I'm trying to write a story now and well, you know how it is. Everything gets in the way. It's a miracle if I can get a hundred words down," Toris says, ignoring the thick layer of awkwardness between them. They have never spoken to each other like this. He can't even remember the last words he said to Berwald. "How have you been?"

Berwald sighs and looks up into the deep black of the universe. "Fine."

Toris can't tell if this is Berwald's usual short speech or if he's struck a nerve. "How are things at the observatory?" he asks.

"I'm not working there anymore. Sent me to Kazakhstan. I leave in two weeks."

"Congratulations," Toris says with enough hesitation in his voice that it sounds more like a question than a compliment.

"It's no good. I'm not in the space program. Got me working on missiles."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"I don't care much for war. Doesn't concern me. I don't want to leave here." He looks at Timo with the faintest hint of a smile. "I'll miss you all. Even Raivis."

"We'll miss you, too," Toris says, hoping to God he sounds sincere. He didn't think Berwald cared about him until this very moment. If he'd have known Berwald was this close to them, he would've been nicer, would've spoke to him more, would've invited him to come out with them for drinks.

"Come here." Berwald leads Toris over to the telescope, brushing Timo and Eduard aside. He spends a minute or so fiddling with it, pointing it at what looks to be a blank spot in the sky. "Here. Look," he says as he steps away.

Toris stoops down enough to look into the lens.

There is a small speck of beige floating in the darkness. As his eyes start to focus, the rings of Saturn appear before him. The planet is faint, almost transparent, and its edges blur out into space. It is so small. It is so alone.

He isn't sure how long he stares at the miniscule planet. It could be seconds. It could be years. When he stands up straight, he is haunted by the thought of Saturn drifting through space. Silent. Unaccompanied. A graceful, haloed giant, following a path set millions of years ago. Waiting until it dies.

"It's my favorite," Berwald says.

"Thank you," Toris says. "Thank you for everything. I am so sorry Raivis broke your telescope."

"It's alright. He's just a boy."

They leave soon after. Toris lingers in the doorway, watching Berwald disassemble the telescope with a precision he didn't think a man of Berwald's size could have. This is one of the last times he'll see the astronomer. He won't ever come up to this roof again to look at the stars. Berwald will leave for Kazakhstan and Toris will be left with the memory of Saturn.

"Good luck in Kazakhstan," Toris says.

"Good luck writing. You need it more than me," Berwald says. "Take care of everyone here 'til I come home."

"I will."

Eduard stops on the second floor to tell Timo goodnight. Toris keeps walking with Raivis. As he reaches the landing between floors, he looks up through the banisters to see Eduard place a soft kiss on Timo's bloodied lips. Their fingers interlace. Raivis opens his mouth and Toris digs his fingers into the boy's wrist.

"_Hyvää yötä, muumi," _Eduard says.

"_Hyvää yötä, Snufkin."_

Toris wants to be happy for him.

Raivis somehow restrains himself from exploding until they're a block from Timo's apartment. When he's sure no one else is around to hear, he springs onto Eduard's back and wraps his arms around Eduard's neck, screaming into the night: "Eduard has a boyfriend!"

"Shut up!" Eduard throws him to the ground and Raivis' head hits the sidewalk with a concerning crack. He scrambles to his feet and runs ahead a safe distance in front of Eduard.

"You _love _Timo," he says in a nauseating, sing-song voice.

"Do you want someone to hear you?" Eduard picks up the nearest rock and throws it into Raivis' stomach.

"Eduard kissed Timo!" Raivis chants over and over as they walk home, ignoring the onslaught of punches and kicks behind the knee Eduard is giving him. When they reach their street, Raivis races to their apartment to tell Ivan, leaving Eduard and Toris alone.

They sit down together on the steps. Eduard buries his face in his knees.

"Fuck," he whispers.

"It's okay, no one's out tonight," Toris says, putting a reassuring hand on Eduard's shoulder. "I'll have a talk with him."

"That's not it," Eduard says.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm in love."

"That's a good thing, Eduard."

"Is it?" Eduard snaps. "This is Moscow, not Paris. I'm going to get arrested, or he is, or we're going to get murdered. I'm hurting him more by loving him." He rakes his fingers through his hair, his hands shaking. "I love him so much. Oh, God. I love him so much and I can't. I can't do this to him."

Toris can do nothing more than put his arm around Eduard. Eduard continues to talk to himself, trying to justify everything he's feeling and the fate of their relationship. Toris listens. He makes gentle suggestions. Blood begins to drip out of the corner of Eduard's mouth.

"It's late. Let's go to bed and talk about this in the morning, alright?" Toris says as he stands up. Eduard nods weakly, following Toris upstairs.

Toris starts to open the door and Eduard grabs his forearm. "I don't want to see Ivan," he says.

"I won't let him hurt you." Toris says this with far too much confidence, as though he's even close to being on the same playing field as Ivan.

Ivan is standing in the hallway, his arms folded over his chest. Toris toes off his shoes and walks around him. Ivan lets him pass. When Eduard attempts to do the same, Ivan steps in front of him.

"No," Eduard says. "Please, Ivan. Let me go to bed."

Ivan looks down at Eduard.

Toris waits for the insult, for the first punch.

Ivan smiles. He reaches over and ruffles Eduard's hair. "I'm happy for you, you stupid fucking queer."

And with this, he turns on his heels and goes to his room.

"That went…better than expected," Toris says.

Eduard glances down the hallway toward Ivan's room. He wipes the blood from his mouth on his wrist. "Was that sarcasm?" he asks.

"It didn't sound like it."

"There is no way he'll let this go," Eduard says. "I'm going to bed before he has a chance to change his mind. You coming?"

"I'll be there in a minute. I want to type up what I wrote at Feliks'."

Ivan is standing by the window, pulling off his shirt when Toris walks in. Toris doesn't acknowledge him and sits down at his desk. He hears Ivan rummaging around behind him and the door closing with a subtle click. A warm hand brushes his back. Toris pulls three napkins from his pocket, laying them out in order, and starts to type.

"Do you have to do that now?" Ivan asks.

"Yes."

"I'd like to talk to you. We haven't seen each other all day and there's been quite the development."

"Eduard kissed Timo. That's all you need to know. Don't you dare talk to anyone outside of us about it," Toris says.

"I'm not going to hurt him. I like Eduard more than you think I do."

"Really? Because I seem to remember you knocking him unconscious yesterday." Toris pecks at the keys with more and more force, the arm punching the paper. The 'a' key gets stuck. Toris holds his head and wishes he could scream without his neighbors calling the police.

"Come here." Ivan pulls Toris up from his chair and takes him to the couch. Toris does not want to follow him. He does not want to be here with Ivan. He wants to write and go to sleep on the floor. He wants to hold Feliks' hand and have cute pet names like _muumi _and Snufkin_. _Yet he lets himself be moved by Ivan, sit next to him, and rest his head on his shoulder.

Toris allows himself to cry for the first time in two years.

Somehow, he falls asleep there. Or rather, he cries himself to sleep. He is half-awoken when Ivan lays him down over the couch and pulls the sheets over him. Toris opens his eyes a little to see Ivan sitting beside him.

"I know you said you were…" Ivan falters. Toris knows what he wants to say and prays he won't say it. "I miss you, Toris. I miss us."

There is a curved, jagged scar that cradles Ivan's collarbone, a scar he won in a knife fight in Perm-36. Toris stares at it instead of meeting Ivan's eyes. "I can't do that again," he says.

"What changed?"

"Nothing."

_I want to feel something, Ivan. You could never make me feel anything. _

Ivan kisses Toris. Toris feels nothing. He begins to wonder if he ever felt anything.

There are a few quiet questions asked. Toris answers them with no emotion in his voice. He doesn't want this. It's a cheap substitution. A terrible imitation of love.

So why does he go through with it?

Ivan takes off Toris' shirt with the same delicateness Berwald disassembled his telescope with. They are on the floor and it's so hot that Toris' skin sticks to the floorboards. There are still tears on his face. Ivan locks the door and turns off the lights. Toris absently traces the scars on Ivan's chest, running his thumb over the smile of the knife fight scar.

Afterwards, they lay next to each other, Ivan drawing loops over Toris' fluttering heart. Ivan whispers about how great it is to be in love again. Toris feels like he's rotting from the inside out. He wants to peel off his skin. He imagines what it is like to die. Somewhere, he heard that hearing is the last sense to go. What will he hear when he dies? Voices? Crying? Music?

Or will there be no one there?

Will he die just as alone as he feels now?

"I love you," Ivan says as he kisses Toris goodnight.

"Thanks," Toris says.

He thinks about Saturn.

* * *

**a/n: hello again!**

**I didn't think I would take this long of breaks between parts. My apologies. However, I did say that I was updating when I felt like it, and this is when I felt like it, so I don't technically have to apologize. I am, though! I will apologize for anything and everything. **

**A small note about this part:**

**Timo and Eduard's nicknames for each other come from Tove Jansson's incredible, timeless, perfect books/comics, _The Moomins. _The moomins are going through a huge renaissance right now, which is great for you! I strongly encourage you to go watch the new Moominvalley or pick up the books. You will fall in love with the moomins as much as I did, guaranteed. **

**I picked their nicknames from the two main characters, Moomintroll (muumi is the Finnish spelling) and Snufkin. **

**Also, they will speak Finnish to each other throughout the story. I'm not translating most of it, because I'm trying to put you in Toris' position. What they say is not crucial to the plot, I promise. **

**I will translate my favorite Finnish phrase for you, though. **

**Hyvää yötä = goodnight (for those of you who are interested, it's pronounced heu-va oo-ah-ta. Try saying it. It's a lot of fun to say. Finnish is a very fun language to speak and I'm jealous of native speakers)**

**It's the last thing my host sister said to me before I left. **

**Thank you all for reading last time and for the amazing review! I hope to see you here again next time. **


	3. кораблекрушение – shipwreck

**! This chapter contains sexual assault, mentions of rape, and domestic violence. !**

* * *

кораблекрушение – shipwreck | monday

"_He spent most of his life walking up and down the same stretch of road hoping for a change of scenery."_

Toris is struck by the perfect sentence as he stands in the shower. If he were more certain about his faith, he would have called it divine intervention. However, he's sure that God doesn't have time to help a pathetic bisexual man who hasn't gone near a church since he was ten, so he chalks it up to pure luck and maybe a little bit of creativity. He repeats the words over and over in his head as he turns the water off and wraps a towel around his waist.

He goes into the office and finds Ivan sitting at the desk, reading through the various discarded stories Toris left in the drawers. He's told Ivan countless times not to read them because they are stupid and childish and not for him. Ivan glances up at Toris and doesn't even try to hide what he's doing. His eyes linger for too long on the towel around Toris's waist. Toris eases the door closed. He is sick to his stomach.

"What are you doing?" Toris asks in the way he'd ask a misbehaving dog.

"I was trying to organize this," – Ivan points to the sea of papers surrounding the typewriter – "And I started reading some of it. I hope you don't mind."

"I don't," Toris says. He does mind, but his privacy doesn't mean anything to Ivan. There's no point in fighting for it.

"So, what are you doing?" Ivan arches an eyebrow, glancing at the towel once again.

"I need to write something down."

Ivan pushes back from the desk, the chair legs grating on the floor, and holds his hand out in a _be my guest _gesture. Toris clenches his hand tight around the towel as he comes up to the desk. He grabs the nearest paper and a pen, scribbling the sentence down in Lithuanian. The words tangle together and the accents aren't in the right places. He does not care. The sooner he can get away from Ivan, the better.

Ivan's hand cradles Toris's waist. "You know I can't read that," he says, his fingers tracing lower and lower on Toris's bare back.

"I write in Lithuanian for a reason."

"It's cute when you get defensive." Ivan's smile is maliciously warm. His hand is beneath the towel. "I love how sensitive you are."

"Let go of me, please."

"The kids are asleep. We could –"

"Don't call them kids. Let go of me." Toris grabs Ivan's wrist and throws his hand away.

"What's wrong?" Ivan pulls Toris into his lap with unfortunate ease. If only Toris didn't weight as much as the average twelve-year-old. If only he was more aggressive. If only he'd stayed away from Ivan Braginsky like Feliks told him to (something isn't right with him, Feliks said. He's missing a piece of himself.) Who knew Feliks could be right?

"Nothing's wrong," Toris says. Everything is visibly wrong. He feels like there are hundreds of spiders crawling over his skin. "I need to get to work and I don't have time for this."

Ivan kisses Toris's neck and Toris feels his heartbeat stop, not in a cutesy way but in a fight-or-flight way. "You could make time for me. It's been a while," Ivan says.

"Is sex all you want me for?" Toris snaps. The words rush out of him so fast he doesn't realize he's spoken until he sees Ivan's stunned expression. He takes a deep breath as the panic sets in – does he tell Ivan the truth or pretend everything is fine, that he enjoys being used and then thrown away at the slightest sign of trouble?

Ivan beats him to the punch. "I love you," he says, cradling Toris's face with his hand. "I love being with you. Talking to you is enough for me."

"So why do you want to fuck me three times a day? Because you love being with me or you love that I'll do anything you want?" Toris says. He's decided to ride this wave of bravery until it crashes into the cliff of anxiety. At least he'll have a small moment of victory before everything crumbles apart.

"I want to spend every minute I can with you."

"You can do that without undressing me."

"It's an added bonus."

"For _you."_

"Don't make this a one-night thing," Ivan says. "Don't hurt me like that."

White hot anger spills into Toris's thoughts and he can't force himself into politeness anymore. "Don't hurt you like that?" he says. "Do you have any idea what you've done to me? I am physically, mentally, and emotionally in pain from loving you. You hurt me every chance you get because you're a fucking sadist and this is clearly fun for you, like it's a fun game to play with my heart because you know I'm weak. You know I cave and every single time I break, you rush in to play the knight in shining armor because all you want is to _rape _– don't you dare think that I've consented to any of this, being fragile is not consent – me on the floor for a few weeks like I'm not worthy of anything better and you're right, I'm not, and then push me aside because you've found someone else to use. And I'm –"

He doesn't get to finish, because Ivan's hands clench around Toris's throat. Ivan isn't choking him; he isn't letting him breathe easy, either. Every ounce of courage leaves Toris's body and he's shaking. Physically trembling, like he used to when he was seven.

"Then what _is_ good enough for you?" Ivan says, tilting Toris's head up toward the ceiling.

"I-I-I don't know what I was say-say-saying." Of course, Toris's stutter picks this moment to make its valiant return. He grabs a fistful of Ivan's red shirt with one hand, trying to wedge his other hand beneath Ivan's. "Please st-st-stop. You're hurting me."

"You could've said no and everything would have been fine."

Toris did say no. He's said no so many times. "I'm so-so-sorry," he says. He is certain Ivan will kill him and goddamn it, why didn't he listen to Feliks?

"I love you with everything I have. I would do anything for you and you have the nerve to say that I'm raping you? Because I love you?"

"I don't kn-kn-know."

"I missed your stutter," Ivan says. "It's adorable."

"Sh-sh-shut up, you fu-fu-fucking pig."

Ivan killed a man, once. He told Toris about it during a spring thunderstorm while they sat on the front steps and watched the rain fall. It happened during the thaw of a Siberian summer. He was out in a field laying railroad tracks in the rain. They were up to their knees in mud. An overseer (Ivan calls him a bitch. Toris doesn't think there's anything wrong with selling yourself out to the military to escape a literal hell frozen over) came up to him and told him he wasn't driving the spikes in straight. Ivan said that he couldn't because the ground was so wet. The overseer kicked him in the small of his back. After Ivan pulled himself out of the mud, he took his sledgehammer and swung it into the man's skull. There was implied to be a lot of blood and things that should have stayed inside of the man.

This man haunts Toris. This man stands at the foot of his bed in the middle of the night, appears in corners of rooms and behind curtains. This man greets Toris in a lot of his dreams, the right half of his face shrouded in black and his muddy uniform covered in blood. In the worst of the dreams, Toris switches places with the man and he's watching Ivan swing the sledgehammer into his head and he can't move, he can only stand there and crumple to the ground like he's following directions, and there is always red: red splattered on the ground and the sky, red staining Ivan's hands, red filling what's left of Toris's mouth –

Colors bleed into view. There is so much red and Toris's head is spinning. He can't move and all he sees is blood.

It happened. It was always meant to happen. He knew from the first time they broke up that Ivan would kill him one day.

"Hey. You're fine."

Toris is pressed up against Ivan's chest, gasping for breath. There is no blood – it's Ivan's shirt. His heartbeat is stuttering as much as he is. He is several steps behind his body as his mind struggles to remember the last thing to happen and his lungs ache for air. Ivan holds him close and kisses the crown of his head, mumbling apologies into his damp hair.

"Help," Toris says in a hoarse whisper as he realizes that he lost consciousness. He can't raise his voice any louder. He wants to scream and nothing will come out of his mouth. He needs Eduard or Raivis, needs them to call the police or get a neighbor or find some way to stop Ivan.

"I'm right here," Ivan says. "I have you."

He picks Toris up and sets him down on the couch, then wraps him in a heavy wool blanket. Toris curls into himself in a sad attempt at defending himself. He could have died. He could have been murdered by Ivan and amounted to nothing in his life. His heartbeat begins to steady itself. The dots clear from the edges of his vision. The back of his throat burns. He can still feel Ivan's fingers curled around his neck.

"Are you okay?" Ivan says.

"No," Toris says. His voice is raspy and sick sounding. He's trembling. "You strangled me."

"Toris, I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Get out."

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Leave."

"You know I don't mean to hurt you. It's not my fault. You say things that make me think of then and I…" Ivan trails off, touching one of the many scars on his neck. "I forget where I am."

"Leave." Toris points to the door.

"I didn't want to –"

Toris gets up and walks out of the room. He isn't playing this roundabout game with Ivan. He locks the bathroom door and presses his back to it, waiting for Ivan to come to him and explain how this isn't his fault, how nothing is ever his fault and everything should be blamed on the past or Toris's carelessness. On cue, footsteps come up to the door. There is a soft knock.

"Go away, Ivan," Toris says.

"I'm sorry."

"Leave me alone."

"Okay. I love you."

Ivan's footsteps fade into the white noise of the morning, his words lingering in the silence. The instant Toris is sure Ivan can no longer hear him, he clutches the sink and vomits (another fun trait from his childhood – if he gets too stressed, his body tries to solve the problem by vomiting. It's a miracle he has an esophagus left.) There is nothing more than bile and the eternal worry that resides in his stomach because he hasn't eaten anything since the strawberry ice cream two days ago.

There is another knock at the door.

Toris wipes his mouth off on the hand towel. "Fuck off, Ivan."

"It's Raivis, actually. Are you okay?"

Toris mentally kicks himself. "I am so sorry. Give me one second." He scrambles to dress himself, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt and of course his shirt gets stuck in the zipper of his jeans, forcing him to wrangle the fabric out of the teeth. By the time he opens the door, far too much time passed for anyone to think he's okay.

Raivis glances up at him through his mess of unbrushed curls. "Shit, what happened to your neck?"

"Sunburn," Toris says, leaning up against the doorframe with a put-on air of casualness. He prays Raivis will be naïve enough to fall for it.

"That is the weirdest goddamn sunburn I've ever seen."

"Don't curse."

"You're not my motherfucking parent," Raivis says through a yawn. "Are you good? Because you were yelling earlier and I thought I heard you –"

"I'm fine," Toris says.

"You sound sick."

"Just allergies."

"Since when do you have allergies? And it's July."

"Oh, you know," Toris says, which isn't really an answer, but he's a little oxygen deprived and it's the best he can come up with.

Raivis stares at him for a few seconds, trying to dissect every problem with Toris's alibi. Toris considers shutting the door in the boy's face before Raivis says, "Do you feel good enough to go with me and Eduard to the park?"

"Of course," Toris says. "I'd love to. Give me a few minutes."

Toris reassembles himself as he wanders through the apartment, collecting his shoulder bag, notebook, and rubles from Ivan's wallet (the smallest, safest act of rebellion.) He compartmentalizes everything, shoving too many thoughts into boxes and hiding them away. As he walks out to the kitchen, he catalogues every pain he feels. He needs to remember how awful, how horrifying it is to love Ivan so he does not do this to himself again.

He has been down this road so many times he's lost count. Each time he ends up a wreck and tells himself he'll change. He suffers through rough kisses and three a.m. sex. Toris pushes through all the bad looking for the good and somewhere along the line, he realizes there was never any good to begin with and he was being used. Then they have a big fight, Ivan vanishes for a few days, Toris vomits, and they move on with their lives.

Everything unfolds in secrecy, when Eduard and Raivis are asleep or out of the house. Of course, the two of them have their suspicions; neither of them is bold enough to go to Ivan and ask. When they ask Toris, Toris tells them nothing is going on and they don't question it. He can't tell them the truth. He is supposed to be the backbone of this dysfunctional pseudo-family, and he can't let them see that he's as weak as they are.

Ivan is standing at the stove, frying eggs. Just five minutes ago he was strangling Toris and here he is, acting like this is a normal morning. Toris keeps his head low as he grabs bread and strawberry jam from the fridge. He makes three sandwiches and wraps them in wax paper before placing them in his bag. As he fills a thermos with apple juice, Ivan comes over to him and puts an arm around his waist.

"I'm sorry," he whispers into Toris's neck.

"I'm done. I never should have done this in the first place."

"Toris, please."

"You choked me once, what's stopping you from doing it again?" Toris says.

"I'll make it up to you," Ivan says. "Please. Give me another chance."

Toris's entire relationship with Ivan is made of second chances.

"No. Leave me alone before I call the police."

"And do what? Tell them your male lover hurt you? They'll take us both in. I've been to prison before. I'm not afraid of it." Ivan pushes Toris away from him, pinning him up against the table. "They will eat you alive."

"What are you doing?" Raivis asks as he silently appears in the kitchen, shoving a tin of chalk pastels and a few pens in his back pocket. Ivan backs away from Toris, returning to his eggs as though they'd been having a casual conversation.

"Nothing important," Toris says, his voice jumping an octave in hopes of sounding happy. It sounds more scared than he intended. "Are you ready to go? Where's Eduard?"

"He told me he didn't want to go anymore. Are you two in the middle of something? I can wait."

"No, we're fine," Ivan says. "Where are you going?"

"The park."

"Sounds like fun."

"Yeah. Will you please go get Eduard?" Toris says, glancing toward Ivan in hopes Raivis will catch on.

Raivis shakes his head. "He's not going to get up. I tried to pull him out of bed and he kicked me."

There is no way Toris will be able to get Eduard to leave without revealing everything, and Eduard will panic, because that's who Eduard is, and then there will be a new catastrophe Toris will have to clean up. "Raivis, I don't think that's –"

"I'm not staying here," Ivan says, giving Toris a side-eye glance. "He'll have the place to himself."

"Where are you going?" Raivis says.

Ivan shrugs. "Anywhere. I might go visit my sisters. I need to get out of here."

Ivan, unfortunately, has a flawless poker face. Toris can't tell if he means it or if he'll take everything out on Eduard the moment they're gone. Whatever Ivan will do puts someone's safety on the line, and Toris hopes to God that it will be Ivan's sisters'. They've lived with this. They know how to calm him down and although Eduard is incredibly smart, he doesn't have a clue how to make Ivan not kill him. And it doesn't help that he has a short temper and a punchable face.

Against his better judgement, Toris puts a tiny bit of faith in Ivan and walks out the door. He hears Ivan say goodbye. Raivis asks if Toris is okay and Toris pretends not to hear.

They walk to the park in unusual silence. Raivis says nothing, asks no questions, and avoids eye contact with Toris. Toris tries to coax him into conversation to prove everything is normal, and Raivis answers in monosyllabic sentences. Raivis only stops talking when he's thinking, and by the sound of it, he's thinking a lot. Toris wishes he'd speak and tear off this metaphorical band-aid.

Raivis does not say a word as he sits down at his usual bench and cracks his sketchbook open to a page full of animal sketches. He takes a pen from his back pocket and starts shading the wing of a crow. Toris takes his place next to him and watches him jump from sketch to sketch, fixing minute details and adding fur or claws.

"Don't you need to write?" Raivis says as he adds eyelashes to a doe.

"I'm not in the mood."

"Your deadline's Friday."

"I didn't know you were my boss," Toris says with a laugh.

"I like having food and electricity," Raivis says.

"Fine. I'll write. It won't be any good." Toris takes the well-worn journal from his bag and his favorite pen. There are no words in his head; they were all choked out of him. For Raivis's sake, he opens the journal to a fresh page and taps the pen against the paper.

How bad would it be if he didn't finish this story on time? There is no way they'd be able to make rent, which forces Ivan to ask his sister, Natalya, to cover for them. Natalya has saved them from eviction time after time out of pity for Ivan, a secret love for Toris, and her position in the Department of Propaganda. Everyone but Ivan feels horrible asking her for money – no matter how much she makes working a government job, she's still taking care of her sister and her sister's husband, and she doesn't need another bill to pay. Still, it's fun to see Ivan beg his baby sister for money and Toris isn't sure he'll be able to write anything worth publishing by Friday.

He makes a mental note to take Natalya out for dinner when he isn't broke.

Toris is imagining his faux date with Natalya (if she were not Ivan's sibling, he'd consider taking her out on a real date) when Raivis jerks on Toris's arm and scrambles up onto the bench, hiding behind Toris's shoulder.

"What is your problem?" Toris asks as he tries to ease Raivis off him. Raivis wraps one arm around Toris's bruised neck and buries his face in Toris's back.

"Dog!" is all he can manage to say.

"Dog?" Toris looks around the park for a vicious dog. There is a woman walking an cheery black lab on a leash on the far side of the park. Other than that, there are no other dogs. Toris knows Raivis is terrified of dogs, but he doesn't panic unless the dog is approaching him. And he's never clung to Toris like this.

"Hey, it's okay," Toris says in his parent voice, twisting around to comfort Raivis. "It's on a leash."

Raivis looks past Toris. He points.

Toris sees a flash of white in the corner of his vision.

By the time he recognizes what's running at him, the German shepherd is three bounds away from ripping their throats open. It reaches them in an instant and Toris can do nothing more than bring his arm up. The dog jumps up on its hindlegs, lunging for Toris's face. Toris flinches in anticipation.

"Ghost!" a voice shouts as the dog begins licking every inch of Toris's face.

The dog is pulled away moments later and Toris is too busy wiping dog saliva from his face to see who's holding the other end of the leash. He feels Raivis loosen his grip on him.

"Sorry about her," says the owner – a man with a touch of an accent and an unshakable familiarity to his voice. "She got away from me."

"It's okay, she didn't hurt me," Toris says.

"Shit, you're the guy who bails out von Bock, aren't you?"

"Eduard?" Toris looks up at the stranger and once he sees the man's weirdly angular face, he remembers where he's heard that voice.

"You're Kosta, right?" Toris says. He's met the officer many, many times at the police station and yet every time, the man's patronymic escapes him.

The man nods. "And you've got some foreign name that I can't ever remember. No offense."

"Toris."

"Toris," Kosta says as though he's recalling the name of an old friend. In a way, they are. "It's good to see you outside of the station. I haven't seen Eduard in a while. He's getting better at running away."

"I hope so. Is this your dog?"

"Yeah. She failed training because she's too goddamn nice. Ghost is a good girl, I promise." Kosta ruffles the dog's white fur. Ghost looks to Toris with an almost human longing in her eyes. Toris isn't sure what it is about him that makes dogs love him; every dog he's met wants to smother him in kisses. "I'm sorry about her."

"It's fine, really. I'm used to it."

"Well, it was nice to see you. I hope we see each other soon. Seeing von Bock in a cell is always the highlight of my day. That kid cracks me up."

"I hope I never see you again," Toris says. "I'm sure I'll see you before summer's over."

"Maybe next time I'll give you a discount," Kosta says with a smile.

Kosta is long gone before Raivis lets go of Toris's arm and collects his sketchbook. "Hey, Toris?"

"Yes?"

"Will you walk down to the little lake with me? I want to go somewhere quiet," Raivis says.

"Sure." Toris doesn't like how he breathes a sigh of relief. He swallows the excuses that he's rehearsed so well and follows Raivis deeper into Izmailovsky Park.

There isn't anywhere to sit in the clearing by the lake, so Toris spends twenty minutes pulling a fallen birch tree loose from the underbrush and dragging it over while Raivis crouches in the dirt, his sketchbook splayed open in front of him. Raivis is too caught up in his drawing of the sunrise to notice Toris's hard work, so Toris sits down by himself and watches the boy work. He's always been fascinated by Raivis – how could such a wonderfully dumb fourteen-year-old be so good at art?

"This sucks," Raivis says, holding the sketchbook out at an arm's length. His fingers are covered in the colors of the sunrise and the lake.

"I think it's good," Toris says. "It reminds me of summer in Kučiūnai."

"Well, it's not." Raivis rips the page from the sketchbook and crumples it up before getting up and throwing it into the water. When it doesn't immediately sink, he grabs the nearest stick and forces the page underwater. "I can't focus," he says as he tosses the stick aside, wiping his colorful hands on his jeans. He picks up his sketchbook and sits down next to Toris. "Tell me what to draw."

"I'm no good at this, Raivis. You'll figure it out."

Raivis isn't listening. His eyes are on the developing bruise on Toris's throat. There's a flicker of recognition on his face. "I don't know," he says. "I'm stuck."

"Then get unstuck," Toris says. "It helps me if I try writing about something I don't know about. Maybe you should try a new subject."

"Are you fucking Ivan?"

It's a classic Raivis move: blunt and out of nowhere.

"Why?" Toris says. He should have known Raivis would catch him off guard.

Raivis's entire face is red and he looks everywhere except at Toris. "I didn't mean to, I swear. You didn't come to bed and I heard you crying in the other room so I went to go ask if you were okay because you get emotional about the weirdest things like colors and stars. And I went to the door and you hadn't shut it all the way, but it was locked, and…" He stops himself, letting the midmorning stillness speak in his place.

"You saw," Toris says.

Raivis pulls his t-shirt up to hide his face, his fingers making multicolored smears on the collar. "I'm so sorry," he says. "I thought he was hurting you or something. I'm so stupid."

On one hand, Toris is thankful he doesn't have to lie his way around this. On the other, he's absolutely mortified that Raivis (dear, sweet, innocent, childlike, beloved Raivis) saw. It's like when Toris was a kid and he walked in on his parents, only ten thousand times worse now that he's the "parent". He knows he should be saying something. He can't. There is nothing to say anymore.

"You're not stupid," Toris says after a few minutes of silence. "And no, I'm not with Ivan. It was a one-night thing."

"How long has this been happening?" Raivis says, still hiding beneath his shirt. "Don't you dare lie to me."

"Off and on since I moved in."

"Two _years_?"

"Off and on."

"Define off and on."

"Every three months or so?"

"And I missed this? For two years?" Raivis pulls his shirt down to count on his fingers. "That's, like, eight times. I'm such an _idiot_."

"It's okay, Raivis. It didn't concern you."

Raivis runs his fingers through his hair, leaving pastel streaks in his curls. "I live with all of you. How did I not know literally all of you are gay?"

"It's not the sort of thing I want people to know, and I'm sure that goes for everyone else," Toris says. "I would have told you if it wasn't Ivan. He'll kill me if he finds out that you know about us. Keep this our secret."

"Do you – did you – really love him?" Raivis says. He is no longer here.

"It's hard to explain."

"That's not a sunburn, is it?"

"It's fine –"

"It's not fine!" Raivis snaps. There is a rustle of wings and a few birds flee from the branches above them. "Don't call this fine because it's not." Tears are welling up in his eyes and he's clenching a fistful of his hair. The sunlight makes his curls glow like honey and if this were not a tense moment, Toris would have taken a second to admire how Raivis is starting to grow out of his childishness.

"Raivis, if I were afraid, I wouldn't keep living here," Toris says. "Ivan is good to me. He doesn't mean to hurt me or anyone else. He's broken."

Tears are rolling down Raivis's cheeks. "Fuck Ivan! It's not your job to fix him!"

"Don't cry, please. We're all okay."

"You're not! You are not okay and I fucking hate it!" Raivis wipes his tears with the back of his shaking hand. "God, you're just like Mom."

"I'm sorry."

"You let him push you around and…I don't want him to kill you." Raivis throws himself into Toris's arms and sobs into his chest.

Toris had been living with Ivan for two months when edited the story. It was a small column on the third page: a war photographer murdered his wife and attempted to stab his son to death. The son was twelve and had been adopted by his cousin. He didn't think much more of the story until Eduard appeared at one of Feliks's Sunday night gatherings and asked Feliks if there was a place they could stay, that he'd been evicted and needed somewhere to sleep for a few weeks until he could find a job. There was a rail-thin boy standing next to Eduard.

Toris knew when he saw how Raivis looked through Feliks. He told them they could stay, without asking Ivan, since at the time Ivan was just a roommate with a lot of quirks and a touch of anger issues, and he wouldn't mind two extra people for a couple of weeks. Weeks turned into months and it became clear that they weren't leaving anytime soon. Eduard and Raivis became more like siblings to Toris than temporary roommates. Although Toris loved Raivis the way he would a brother, he still didn't have a clue what to say when Raivis brought up his parents or when he saw the eight scars decorating his back.

"We need to leave," Raivis says.

"Where are we going to go?"

"We could go stay with Feliks."

"Feliks doesn't have any room for three of us. And I don't think Gilbert would like me being there."

"Then we could go to Natalya. She's got a big house and she likes you."

Toris smiles. "I wish we could. Natalya has to take care of Katya and Sadik, and Ivan would know how to get us. We'll be okay staying here for a while longer, I promise. I won't let Ivan hurt any of us. It was my fault he was mad this morning, anyway."

"Promise me we'll move out before next year."

"Raivis, I…" Toris can't even begin to think of moving out. They'd have to go to the suburbs to be able to afford anything, and then they'd need a car, and none of them are on the registry. Moving out would be a five-year process at the least. "We'll leave as soon as we can."

"Promise." Raivis sits up straight again, doing his best to glare at Toris. It's hard to take him serious when there's rainbow streaks in his hair and his face is blotchy.

"I can't promise you anything."

They stay in the park until late in the evening, when Toris's arms begin to sting with sunburns and Raivis announces to the world that he's a terrible artist and he's giving up. On the walk home, Toris stops by the grocery store to pick up ice cream. The clerk stares at the bruise around Toris's neck. Toris pretends not to notice the countless other eyes that look for a moment too long at his throat. They must think he's a mafia man or KGB.

Toris would rather be a criminal or a government slave than the pushover he is.

Eduard is about to leave when they come home. He's got a camera slung over his shoulder and Toris's shoes on his feet.

"Where are you going?" Toris asks as he shoves the bag of ice cream in the freezer.

"They're putting up a new prefab over in Perovo. It's a total mess," Eduard says. "Ivan stayed at Natalya's for dinner. He seemed pissed."

"Sorry. Hey, try not to get arrested. I saw your officer in the park today and he said they miss you at the station."

"They miss me?"

"They miss getting paid for you to be there."

"Oh, those pricks. I miss them, too. Especially Kosta. Maybe I'll let them catch me tonight so we can catch up," Eduard says with a laugh. Somehow, Toris doesn't think he's joking.

"I can't bail you out if you get caught."

"I won't get arrested, Toris. I'll be in and out. No one will know I was there."

"Be back by eleven."

"I'm 22. I don't need a curfew."

"Be back by eleven, dear," Toris says. Raivis stifles a laugh in his hand.

Eduard groans. "Fine, _mom. _I'll be home by eleven and I won't get caught by the cops. Happy?"

"Thank you. Hey, before you go, I need to talk to you." Toris goes out into the hallway, cornering Eduard by the hook holding a few jackets and Ivan's collection of scarves. "Did Raivis talk to you about...?"

"About you and Ivan?" Eduard says. "Or something else?"

"Yes, that."

Eduard shoves his hands in his pockets, looking at the floor. "I've known since we moved in. You two aren't exactly subtle about it. And it's pretty obvious what you two are doing at two a.m."

"And you didn't say anything about it?"

"It's not my business who you sleep with. Congratulations on coming out or whatever, but literally everyone knew. Can I go now? This is making me uncomfortable." Eduard pushes past Toris and is out the door before Toris can respond.

Toris stands in the hallway, feeling like Eduard punched him in the stomach. Everyone knew? Who does everyone extend to? Timo? Berwald? Kosta? Feliks? Has Eduard been telling people or is the tension that obvious? Who does Eduard think he is, running off before Toris can figure out how many people know he's with Ivan?

"You okay?" Raivis calls from the kitchen.

"Not really," Toris says. He goes to the living room and throws himself down on the couch, thinking over every conversation he's had in the past two years. Raivis comes into the living room a few minutes later, placing a chocolate ice cream and a spoon on Toris's chest like an offering to a god. Toris mumbles a thank-you and rips off the paper lid.

"Shit," Toris says through a mouthful of chocolate ice cream.

He starts laughing.

It's not a funny sort of laughter. Toris is so scared now that he can do nothing but laugh. If the wrong person finds out he's bi, he could be murdered or beat within an inch of his life. If Ivan finds out other people know, he'll strangle Toris for real. If Feliks does know, he must be furious with Toris because they're supposed to tell each other everything. If Eduard gets arrested tonight, Toris is going to have to bargain with Kosta in the morning and there is nothing more embarrassing than having to plead with a hungover police officer for a lower bail. Everything is falling apart and out of his control.

"Toris, you're scaring me," Raivis says.

"Eduard is so going to get arrested," Toris says. "Shit."

"Maybe he won't?" Raivis kind of laughs, in a nervous way. Like he doesn't get the joke.

They stay up until Tuesday morning, waiting. Ivan comes home drunk around one and doesn't acknowledge the two of them sitting on the floor, drawing elaborate disguises over the people in the newspaper with crayons they found in the back of a drawer and giggling like they're in primary school. He reappears at 3:45 to tell them to shut the hell up, he has a terrible fucking headache and they're being way too loud. Raivis falls asleep on the floor a while later. Toris turns off the lights and watches the door in the darkness, hoping for a miracle. It never opens.


End file.
